4th December 2011

McGivern, G., & Fischer, M. D., Social Science & Medicine (2011) doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.09.035

To access the paper please click on the above title.
For enquiries, please email michael.fischer@kcl.ac.uk

To access the documents, please click on the links below.

President Report
‘Endings and Exits in Analysis’: summaries of contributions

4th October 2011

College of Psychoanalysts-UK

Round Table discussion followed by AGM,
10 am, November 19th 2011, Room 414, Birkbeck College

Endings and Exits in Analysis

The course of an analysis is never predictable and there can be no promises made about the outcome.  This is one of the differences between analysis and some other forms of therapy, where the outcome or aim may be established at the beginning of the work.  In symptom focused treatments, the elimination of a phobia, for example, can be set as the goal of the work. If the phobia disappears, the treatment has been successful.  Yet analysis offers something different:  there is no promise to cure the symptom, but rather the offer to accompany the patient on a path, destination unknown, a path where signposts appear along the way pointing to false trails, perplexing questions and individual truths.
 
However, all analyses have to end at some point and sometimes this is with a smile and sometimes with a curse.  Occasionally it is with a death.  Sometimes people just stop coming.  If we can't predict an outcome in advance, how can we say that an analysis has ended? And what are the differences between genuine endings and precipitous exits? Can we speak of ‘good’ endings?  Is the smile ‘better’ than the curse?  Can we ‘work towards an ending’ as many trainings suggest?  Does an analysis continue despite the absence of the analyst?  
 
We will be discussing these and many other questions which arise with ‘endings and exits’ and hope you will be able to join us.
 
Panel:  Darian Leader, Paul Atkinson, Kate Gilbert, Julia Carne, Werner Prall and Joe Suart.  
 
The Round Table presentations and discussion will begin at 10 am on Saturday November 19th in Room 414, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1.  Coffee will be available from 9.30.

The 8th AGM of the College of Psychoanalysts-UK and the Academy of Psychoanalysis (CPUK registrants only) will take place after the Round Table, also in Room 414.  This will begin at 12.15 and last approximately 45 minutes.

4th October 2011

'... The simplicity of Parker's work is that he lends his ears (they were 'a national treasure', according to Anthony Storr, who should know about ears, having been a famous Jungian psychoanalyst in his time) and invited people to tell their story. He sometimes worked with someone for as long as two years to accumulate what he needed and then to find the key to cut the mass of words into a pithy monologue. He taped the conversations and transcribed them, and listened to and read them over and over again. This hard work paid off with lucid, simple, compelling stories, each one touching a truth .... I'll take up the challenge! I don't suppose it's easy, but I do think it worthwhile. I propose to pay homage to Tony Parker by listening to psychoanalysts in or close to the NHS. From where I stand, they seem a little bit like the lighthouse keepers he wrote about – doing a vital, lonely and risky job, clinging on between a rock and a hard place, little known, barely understood, and about to be wiped out by the creeping commodification of medicine and health happening all around them. If you would like to be part of this, or know someone who might, please get in touch ....'

To access the blog, please click here

17th February 2011

Dear All,

The government has now halted the project to regulate the talking therapies via HPC. In its command paper published yesterday  ‘Enabling Excellence’, it makes clear that statutory regulation will not apply to any new fields (except herbal medicine, following EU law). The CHRE will aim to kitemark existing registers, such as UKCP, yet without the direct and intrusive framework of HPC. Practitioners will be able to use the title they choose, and regsitration with a CHRE-approved list will not be obligatory.

This is the result we hoped for in the campaign, and the government seems to have responded to many of our arguments. We are very pleased with this development, and with the dialogue with politicians that has been possible. We should remember that the detail of CHRE kitemarking is not yet known, although preliminary talks with them seem have been positive. Reading between the lines, the government message seems to be that basically practitioners should sort out their own system, and if this fails, they may introduce statutory regulation at some point in the future. So, there is still a lot to be done, but we have achieved a substantial victory.

Thanks once again to everyone who has participated in and supported the campaign.

The full transcript of the JR proceeding held on 10th January 2011 and Mr Justice Burton’s judgement have now been released. To access these documents please click on the links below.

Full Transcript of Judicial Review Proceeding click here
Mr Justice Burton’s Judgement click here

12th February 2011

Darian Leader gave the meeting an update of the situation regarding the Judicial Review and his full Report will be posted at the next web update.

Elections:

Anne Worthington was re-elected as Treasurer for 3 years;

Simona Revelli was re-elected as a Governor for 3 years;

Bruce Scott was elected as a Governor for 3 years, and

Peter Nevins was elected as a Governor for 2 years.

Thanks were given to Joe Suart for his many years of hard work for the College, and to David Henderson for his valued work over the past year.

We all look forward to working with the two new Board members and are very pleased to have them with us during what will inevitably be a very busy year.

Julia Carne

The conference was very well attended and gave members an opportunity to have a much needed debate about the transmission of psychoanalysis. Three speakers made interesting and valuable contributions, two of which can be accessed through the following links. We hope to have Julia Borossa’s paper available in due course.

Contribution by Ian Parker click here 
Contribution by Paul Verhaeghe click here 

Notice is hereby given that the Seventh Annual General Meeting of The College of Psychoanalysts-UK will be held at 5pm on Saturday 12th February 2011 in the Library at 21 Maresfield Gardens, London NW3 5SX. Business will be conducted according to the following Agenda:

1. To receive apologies
2. Minutes of the 2009 AGM
3. Matters Arising
4. To receive the President's Report
5. To receive the Honorary Treasurer's Report and to adopt the Annual Accounts 2009-10
6. To appoint auditors for the ensuing financial year
7. Elections

a. To elect the Treasurer (3 years)
b. To elect 3 Governors (two 3-year terms and one 2-year term)

8. To take Any Other Business
9. To arrange date of Annual General Meeting for 2011/12

Dated this 24th January 2011

Julia Carne
Honorary Secretary

Psychotherapists win the right to challenge Health Professions Council plans for statutory regulation

Mr Justice Burton has given six psychotherapy and psychoanalysis practitioner groups permission to proceed with what he described as an “important” judicial review challenge to proposals for their regulation by the Health Professions Council (HPC).

The groups' barrister, Dinah Rose QC argued that the HPC had unlawfully ducked critical questions about whether psychotherapy and psychoanalysis should be regulated by statute and, more importantly, whether the HPC is fit for purpose in this context given its focus on the measurable outcomes of medical-style interventions. Their judicial review was ruled to have been brought without delay and was “clearly arguable” in the judge’s view. Giving a short oral judgement, Mr Justice Burton went on to criticise the misleading nature of HPC statements. Practitioner groups had been led to believe the HPC were considering and would be reporting to the Department of Health on whether it should be the regulator in circumstances where this was apparently never planned or done.

During the course of the litigation the Department of Health has maintained a neutral stance and put plans to introduce legislation on hold to await the Court’s decision. The HPC will now have five weeks to file further evidence before the case is listed for a full hearing in the Spring.

Professor Darian Leader of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, one of the six practitioner groups, said today:

“It is very unfortunate that the HPC has chosen to use its existing registrants’ fees to fight this case to date. We are told by its solicitors that its legal costs already run to £47,000. This money could be used to produce a meaningful report on how best to regulate the talking therapies. Instead it is being used to defend an empire-building decision that today’s ruling exposes as being legally questionable and, in our view, is perverse and unsustainable. The HPC was charged with investigating the regulatory needs of practitioner groups such as ours and deciding whether statutory regulation was appropriate at all and, if it was, whether it was the right regulator. It simply evaded those questions. We hope the HPC will now show itself to be appropriately sensitive to the indication given by the Court, withdraw its current proposals for regulation and step aside so a body that is actually capable of improving standards and protect the public in this difficult field can be created.”

Notes for editors:

1. The groups' solicitor, John Halford of Bindmans LLP can be contacted on 0207 833 7827 or at j.halford@bindmans.com.

2. The claim was brought by the Association for Group And Individual Psychotherapy, the Association of Independent Psychotherapists, the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, the College of Psychoanalysts-Uk, the Guild of Psychotherapists and the Philadelphia Association.

3. The campaign has been supported by many well-known artists, writers and philosophers, including Rosie Boycott, Tracey Emin, Brian Eno, Sophie Fiennes, Bella Freud, Esther Freud, Antony Gormley, John Gray, Oliver James, Anish Kapoor, Hanif Kureishi, Lee Hall, Susie Orbach, Cornelia Parker, Adam Phillips, Will Self, Gavin Turk and Slavoj Zizek.

The Library, 21 Maresfield Gardens, London NW3 5SX (opposite the Freud Museum) 2.30pm followed by AGM at 5 pm (Please note - venue has changed from Freud Museum)

Psychoanalysis, it is said, is a subjective profession, in the sense that, in order to function as an analyst, the person needs to undergo a subjective transformation. If this is indeed a fundamental condition of the practice of analysis the question arises as to the impact of standardisation of trainings on the one hand, and academicisation on the other. If 'knowledge and skills' become the predominant elements in a training, psychoanalysis might become teachable only at the cost of it ceasing to be psychoanalysis. Perhaps the question is, if psychoanalysis is not teachable, can it remain so in the future?

For more details about the conference and speakers click here

8th January 2010

On 10 December 2009 the HPC met to review the responses to the consultation on the recommendations of the Psychotherapists and Counsellors Professional Liaison Group. The following document highlights its conclusions.

HPC document ‘Conclusions on the Proposed Statutory Regulation of Psychotherapists and Counsellors’ - To read the document click here

Response of The College to the HPC document ‘‘Conclusions on the Proposed Statutory Regulation of Psychotherapists and Counsellors’ To read the document click here

14th October 2009

On Friday 9th October a new report was published, which delivers a devastating critique of the Government’s flagship Health Professions Council. HPC are vaunted as the most efficient and robust route to protection of the public in the health sector, yet The Maresfield Report finds persistent failings in public protection, excessive and wasteful expenditure, and evidence of a policy of privileging employer complaints over complaints from members of the public.

Click here to read the report in PDF format.

28th September 2009

The Health Professions Council (HPC), charged by Dept. of Health to investigate the regulatory needs of Psychotherapy and Counselling and then to see whether the HPC could accommodate those needs, has produced its final consultation documents. These set out how it proposes to redefine the profession in order for the HPC to regulate it.

The College of Psychoanalysts-UK has considered these proposals in detail and considers that the definition of psychotherapy set out by them present a serious threat to the work that our members do. Much of the detail of the proposed Standards of Proficiency are directly in opposition to the way our members work. Much of what is contained in the proposals have no relevance to psychotherapy as our members understand it and yet our members will be required by law to abide by them.

Below is a detailed critique of the HPC proposals, which we, in concert with 7 other Psychoanalytic organisations, have signed and submitted to the HPC.

Co-signed response to HPC-PLG click here
Co-signed response to HPC standards of proficiency click here

The College was interested to see that there must have been a significant set of concerns put forward to S4H in response to their consultation, and that this briefing sheet was therefore produced in order to ‘address some of the misunderstandings’ associated with the project. We were very surprised, however, to read an account of the consultation process which bears little resemblance to our, and many others’, experience of it. Furthermore, the conflicting and misleading statements about the nature and purpose of the NOS contained in the Frequently Asked Questions update sheet means that any aim of clarification or of reassurance has not been met by this document. The reasons for our views are set out in our response to the briefing. The following links give access to both documents.

Skills for Health’s Briefing click here

Response from The College click here

The conference was very well attended and provided a much needed opportunity to debate the implication of ‘fitness to practise’ as would be applied to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists under proposed regulation through HPC. The links below give access to the programme and to contributions made by speakers.

Conference Programme click here
Contribution by Jacques China click here
Contribution by Mary Clark-Glass click here
Contribution by Phil Mollon click here
Power-point presentation by Phil Mollon click here
Contribution by Paul Verhaeghe click here

THE COLLEGE OF PSYCHOANALYSTS - UK

6th June 2009, 10am-5pm

Are You Fit to Practise?
From Ethical Framework to Model of Good Behaviour

A one-day conference organised in association with The Academy of Psychoanalysis.

Click here for more information.

2nd March 2009

On 27th February, Darian Leader, President of The College and Andrew Hodgkiss, who is both a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, met with Marc Seale, Chief Executive of the Health Professions Council (HPC), Michael Guthrie, head of Policy and Standards at HPC, and Diane Waller, chair of the HPC Professional Liaison Group (PLG) to discuss the contents of the recent letter from The College to the PLG already published in the February item of Lates News which can be accessed by clicking here.

The notes of the above meeting on 27th February can be accessed by clicking here.

11th February 2009

The British Psychoanalytic Council have published on their website their own report on the recent developments at the Health Professions Council, along with their views about the process. It makes interesting reading, especially when the spectre of a hidden or unconscious agenda on the part of BPC is raised in what they reveal about their stated intention to take their own vision "forward into a desolate cul-de-sac". Their exact words on the matter are as follows:

"A re-heated debate on the desirability of statutory regulation can only serve to divert the progressive energies needed to take this vision forward into a desolate cul-de-sac."

Presumably, when they come to realise what they have actually said, they will quickly publish an amended version. Or maybe they really do mean what they say and will surprise everyone, including themselves!

February 2009

A Professional Liaison Group ("PLG") has now been set up by the Health Professions Council to make recommendations for the proposed regulation by that body of the disciplines of psychotherapy and counselling. A list of those appointed by HPC to the PLG can be accessed from this link to the HPC website.

It will be observed from the above list of participants that, so far as psychoanalysis is concerned, the PLG is heavily weighted in favour of representatives associated with the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) and that there is nobody from either The College or the Psychoanalytic Consortium.

All deliberations of the PLG are held in public. However, the number of spaces in the "public gallery" is very limited. Decisions of the PLG are minuted and copies of those minutes, once approved, are published on the HPC website. HPC claims that any interested person or body is free to make submissions and comments arising out of the deliberations of PLG. All of these details, including the dates of all coming meetings of PLG and their agendas, are published by HPC on their website and may be accessed from this link.

The same details of previous meeting of PLG are also published by HPC on their website and may be accessed from this link.

Notes taken by a member of The College who attended the initial meeting of PLG are more interesting than the official HPC mintes of that meeting for what they reveal about the level of opposition to regulation by HPC felt by many members of the profession. This was impartially reported on by the UKCP representative who was present then. The notes taken by the member of The College are available by clicking on this link.

The College has since then made formal representations to PLG setting out its reasons for opposing regulation of the profession in the manner proposed by HPC. A copy of the letter sent by The College to PLG in this regard is available by clicking on this link.

At the last meeting of the PLG, it was decided that there should be one Part of the Register for Psychotherapists and Counsellors with only one separate registered professional title for each of these i.e. psychotherapist and counsellor. However, in the absence of separate qualifications for each, practitioners will be registered as entitled to use only the professional title that is appropriate to their qualification(s) and the two professional titles will not be interchangeable.

HPC has announced that it is to hold a much more inclusive meeting than the PLG which will be open to all interested stakeholders and, in particular, to those who are not represented on the PLG. The College intends to send a representative to this meeting.

December 2008

At the Annual General Meeting of The College held on 29th November 2008, the following business was transacted:

1. A resolution proposed by the Board of Governors that the name of the company limited by guarantee registered at Companies House
The College of Psychoanalysts (United Kingdom)
be changed to
The College of Psychoanalysts - UK
was voted on and approved unanimously.

2. A resolution proposed by the Board of Governors that the name of the company limited by guarantee registered at Companies House and the charity of the same name registered with the Charity Commission
College of Pschoanalysis
be changed to
Academy of Psychoanalysis
was voted on and approved unanimously.

[All formalities in connection with both of the above resolutions have since been completed and the above changes have now been brought fully into effect with both Companies House and with the Charity Commission.
In addition, the former name College of Psychoanalysis has been registered as a new company, in order to ensure that all rights to use that name remain and will continue to remain vested exclusively in The College]

3. Julia Carne was re-elected as Hon. Secretary for three years.

4. Dorothy Hamilton resigned as Hon Treasurer, having served one year of her second three-year term of office.

5. Anne Worthington was elected as Hon Treasurer for two years.

6. Sian Ellis was re-elected as a governor for a second three-year term of office.

7. Jason Wright, though eligible to do so, did not stand for re-election as a governor, following expiry of his first three-year term of office.

8. Werner Prall was elected as a governor for a first three-year term of office.

9. Ian Parker resigned as a governor having served one year of his second three-year term.

10. Simona Revelli was elected as a governor for two years.

11. Jinny Fisher resigned during the year as a governor, having served part of two years of her first three-year term of office and Anne Worthington was co-opted by the Board of Governors to serve as a governor for the remainder of those two years until the AGM.

12. Haya Oakley was elected as a governor for one year.

13. Following her co-option as a governor during the course of the year, Anne Worthington resigned as a member of the Professional Conduct Panel.

14. Alan Rowan was elected to the Professional Conduct Panel for three years.

15. Anouchka Grose was elected to the Professional Conduct Panel for three years.

Pursuant to the Articles of Association of The College, nobody is permitted to stand for more than two consecutive full-terms in the same office.

October 2008

The Health Professions Council has now begun the task of exploring proposals for the regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists. They recently sent to stakeholders within the professions concerned, including The College, a Call for Ideas document to help them in their endeavour by answering ten specific questions. The College has now responded to that Call for Ideas. The document in question may be accessed by clicking on this link.

In addition, representatives of The College have now met with Marc Seale, the Chief Executive of HPC and Sam Mars, Policy Officer. A note of this meeting held on 13th October 2008 may be accessed by clicking on this link .

HPC is also expected to announce very soon the composition of the Professional Liaison Group that will be advising them on any proposals to regulate counsellors and psychotherapists. The PLG is referred to in the above meeting.

LETTER FROM THE COLLEGE TO SKILLS FOR HEALTH

A copy of a letter written by The College to SfH may be accessed by clicking on this link.

COUNSELLORS AND PSYCHOTHERAPISTS - ROAD MAP TO THEIR STATUTORY REGULATION

Comments by The College of Psychoanalysts on the above document published by the Health Professions Council in December 2007 may be accessed by clicking on this link.

July 2008

As part of the move towards regulation of psychotherapists and counsellors by the state via the Health Professions Council (HPC), the Department of Health has involved Skills for Health (SfH). Skills for Health is the Sector Skills Council for the UK health sector. They claim that their purpose is to help the whole sector develop solutions that deliver a skilled and flexible UK workforce in order to improve health and healthcare. Arising from this, they have set out to specify competences and national occupational standards (NOS) for psychotherapists and counsellors, whether working in the NHS or in private practice. SfH claim that national occupational standards define what a person who is competent at a particular activity is able to achieve and that they also indicate the knowledge and understanding that such a person will need.
The website of SfH may be accessed by clicking this link .
SfH published an initial outline of how they proposed to go about the above project which may be accessed by clicking this link .
SfH have also published a newsletter regarding development of the NOS which may be accessed by clicking this link .
Recently, SfH published some draft NOS for psychotherapists, including those who work in what they have decided to term the psychodynamic modality, which is presumably intended to include psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists for whose ability to practise in the way they have always done so, there are worrying if not fatal implications. These draft NOS may be downloaded in Word format here: Skills for Health draft NOS.
Or read it by clicking on this link .

The College has now prepared an important appraisal and critique of the above draft NOS which may be accessed here: College Critique of Skills for Health draft NOS

The College has also issued the following Press Release in relation to these matters:

THE COLLEGE OF PSYCHOANALYSTS - UK

PRESS RELEASE

Under proposed new government guidelines, most forms of psychoanalysis could become illegal in 2009. The Government aims to regulate talking therapies next year and has already started the process of assessing the field. The Health Professions Council has been given the task of regulating talking therapies, with its partner Skills for Health (SfH) charged with developing National Occupational Standards for therapeutic work. Nearly all the psychotherapy and psychoanalytic organisations protested that HPC was inappropriate for talking cures, yet this has been totally ignored and HPC imposed as the regulator.

The psychodynamic and psychoanalytic organisations in this country are already regulated by two main bodies (UKCP and BPC) which have been developed through the profession over the last twenty-five years. Each of the member organisations of UKCP and BPC has strict codes of ethics, practice and complaints procedures, and is inspected periodically by the regulatory body. Yet the new developments will render the existing regulatory structures for the most part obsolete. With this comes a new vision of what psychodynamic and psychoanalytic work actually is.

For HPC and SfH, psychoanalytic work is seen more as an intervention to be applied - like a drug - TO patients than a long and painstaking work done BY patients. This view of therapy as an external intervention is reflected in the government's plan to 'give' therapy to young Muslims they suspect of harbouring aspirations to terrorism: psychotherapy becomes a tool of social control rather than a choice made by the individual to explore their own life.

A consultation process was begun by SfH in 2007, and the results just published in draft form.More than 450 rules have been listed for psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy. They dictate every aspect of how therapists should organise their sessions, how they should 'monitor' themselves and how they should carry out their work. They go into minute detail about the timing of interventions, the setting of the therapy, its aims - and even the expression of appropriate 'feelings'. Such an application of externally-imposed rules - most of which were expressly contraindicated by Freud, Jung and the analysts who followed, such as Klein, Lacan and Winnicott - removes the very foundation on which such therapies are based, namely the freedom of both parties to work together authentically and creatively. If these rules are accepted, then it will no longer be possible for analysts - and many therapists - to work in this country.

The SfH project shows how analytic work is being forced into the current culture of outcomes, where everything can be predicted in advance and evaluated in relation to the expected results. Analysis, however, involves an open-ended relationship, where results may emerge that were never predicted or even thought of by the person in analysis. The very distinction between conscious and unconscious motivation that lies at the heart of analytic work is ignored by the proposed regulations which encourage a 'false self', a box-ticking clinician, always fearful of being watched by the authorities and anxious to please them. If analysis has an aim, it is to help patients free themselves from irrational forms of authority, exactly those that now threaten to constrain the work of analysts.

According to the government roadmap, HPC will establish a list of reputable practitioners, which will mean effectively those who adopt their particular formulations as to what psychoanalysis is about. All the documentation published to date by HPC shows a serious misunderstanding of the nature of analytic work, together with a new insistence on 'good character' defined in highly rigid ways. If this goes ahead, then members of the public will no longer have the freedom to choose their analyst. Rather, they will have to select a practitioner from a list which only includes those who practise a particular form of therapy.

How did this situation come about after the long process of consultation with the profession? The working parties at SfH which have drafted the new rules are made up almost exclusively of members from one single highly partisan grouping, concerned to define psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a very narrow frame. This narrow frame fits a particular technique developed by the Chair of the SfH National Strategy Group together with the Chair of the SfH Working Group known as 'Mentalization Based Therapy' (MBT). Some research shows evidence for the value of this technique for particular NHS patient categories, but it represents a tiny minority of the total psychoanalytic therapy that is undertaken, mostly in the private sector. Its techniques and ethical framework are entirely opposed to most traditional psychoanalytic work.

The Working Group and the National Strategy group, under these chairs, have excluded contributions which do not meet this narrow frame. SfH had promised seats on the working parties to representatives of other groupings, yet these were then withheld and SfH have admitted that they have not chosen to develop their work democratically. Requests for documents about the consultation process obtained under the Freedom of Information Act have shown astonishing failure to follow proper procedures and the hijacking of the consultation by a small and ambitious group of individuals.

Thousands of therapists have been writing to MPs and politicians about the current situation, seeking a recognition of the fact that analytic work cannot be reduced to a set of rules to be mechanistically applied to a patient with predictable outcomes, but involves an exploration of the meaning of an individual's history which can never be guessed in advance. Analytic work, for the majority of analysts, should be regulated by the bodies established by the profession and not by the State.

For more information contact:

Haya Oakley (Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis) - 07929 559 817
Julia Carne (Psychoanalytic Consortium) - 07774 903204
Darian Leader (Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research) - 07952 520 540
Sian Ellis (Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy) - 07949 088 963
Joe Suart (The Guild of Psychotherapists) - 07772 510 475
Anne Worthington (The Guild of Psychotherapists) - 07904 870 962
Jason Wright (Association of Independent Psychotherapists) - 0793 274 7724

1 July 2008

BCM Box 2629
LONDON WC1N 3XX
Tel: 01799 584231
Email: enquiries@psychoanalysis-cpuk.org
Website: www.psychoanalysis-cpuk.org

In May 2008 it was made clear that the Government intended to proceed apace with the regulation of the psychotherapies, including psychoanalysis. The regulator would be the Health Professions Council, despite the almost unanimous agreement among professional groups that HPC was not suited to regulate psychotherapy. A great deal of correspondence was sent which set out reasons for the unsuitability of HPC, yet this was not responded to in any substantial way. Before regulation can occur, a number of steps have to be worked through:

Firstly, the definition of what psychotherapy/psychoanalysis is.

In order to establish this, Skills for Health, a Public Authority, on the instructions of the Department of Health, was given the project of consultation. They were supposedly going to set up working groups with representation from various modalities which would arrive at generally acceptable National Occupational Standards for the psychodynamic psychotherapies and psychoanalysis. The College of Psychoanalysts and the Psychoanalytic Consortium both tried to be part of this process. The Consortium was not given the courtesy of a reply; the process simply began without them. The College was promised two places but was subsequently excluded without any explanation. Thus, those who were from the outset voicing their discontent with the nature of the process were excluded from contributing anything to that process, including being able to explain to those participating in it in good faith, that it was from the outset a biased process. It was clear at this point that careful vetting of the political stance of members was more important than a fair distribution of places.

Secondly, the production of National Occupational Standards.

The working group for psychodynamic psychotherapies and psychoanalysis has now met a couple of times and produced a set of National Occupational Standards, drafted first of all by two academics who are known for their work which adopts methodology similar to that used in an attempt to validate CBT. Despite the clear antithesis between the psychoanalytic and the cognitive approach, the acknowledged framework for the production of the analytic standards is that of CBT. If these are accepted, they will probably become part of a manual to which we may all be expected to adhere, despite being excluded from the process. The NOS produced are based upon a very particular view of what constitutes psychodynamic work and psychoanalysis. This is a view that many feel does not bear more than a passing resemblance to the way they have been trained and experienced in working. Thus, at a stroke, different orientations, the training analysis, current trainings, are at risk of being turned into something outside the remit of what will be defined by this brutal process.

Thirdly, wider consultation within the psychotherapy/psychoanalysis organisations for comments on the NOS.

This is the stage at which we now find ourselves. There seems to be a choice of approach: comply with the demand of the organisation which has up to now refused to allow us to participate, and produce the usual rational and well-thought-out arguments as to why this should not be imposed on those segments of the profession who do not recognise their ethics or way of working in this NOS document; or, refuse at this point to participate as we have been offered no part in producing the NOS and will therefore be unlikely to be listened to at this point.

It seems clear that the objectives of this political process were set at the beginning of the project - of course, this is how political process usually works - and clearer still that objections will not be listened to.

So, what can we do if we don't recognise our practice in the NOS as being circulated currently for comment?

• Argue the points in detail and keep trying to assert some influence on the process;
• Make further representations to Skills for Health;
• Form horizontal alliances with other practitioner groups who find the likely outcome of the NOS and Skills for Health process unacceptable (it was said early on that there had to be agreement to regulation by a substantial proportion of psychotherapists);
• Make public statements highlighting the abuse of power apparent in this biased process carried out by a Public Authority.

These questions are currently the subject of debate and a range of documents are being drafted. We are also encouraging anyone concerned about the undemocratic and biased way that this process is unfolding to write to their MP. A template letter can be found by clicking this link .

If you want to find out who your local MP is then you can go to http://www.writetothem.com and type in your postcode. You can then write to your MP c/o the House of Commons.

December 2007

At the AGM of The College held on 8th December 2007, the following business was transacted:

1. Jacques China resigned as President, having served one year of his second three-year term of office.

2. Darian Leader was elected as President for a term of two years.

3. Haya Oakley resigned as Hon. Secretary, having served two years of her first three-year term of office.

4. Julia Carne was elected as Hon. Secretary for one year.

5. Dorothy Hamilton was re-elected for a second three-year term as Hon Treasurer, following expiry of her first three-year term of office.

6. Ian Parker was re-elected as a governor for a second three-year term, following expiry of his first term of office on the Board of Governors.

7. Sylvia Cohen, though eligible to do so, did not stand for re-election as a governor, following expiry of her first three-year term of office on the Board of Governors.

8. Jacques China was elected as a governor for a first three-year term of office on the Board of Governors.

9. Darian Leader resigned as a governor, having served one year of his second three-year term of office.

10. Joseph Suart was elected as a governor for a two-year term of office on the Board of Governors.

11. Anne Worthington was elected as a member of the Professional Conduct Panel for a term of three years.

Pursuant to the Articles of Association of The College, nobody is permitted to stand for more than two consecutive full-terms in the same office.

March 2007

The government has now published its White Paper Trust, Assurance and Safety -The Regulation of Health Professionals in the 21st Century clarifying and setting out its proposals for state-regulation of a number of professions, including psychotherapists, counsellors and applied psychologists. For those with Acrobat Reader, the White Paper may be accessed from the Department of Health website.

The White Paper follows two earlier reports for consultation, published by the Department of Health: The Donaldson Report, Good doctors, safer patients (outlining proposals for the regulation of medical practitioners) and the Foster Review, The regulation of the non-medical healthcare professions (outlining proposals for the regulation of, inter alios, psychotherapists and counsellors).

An outline of the results of the two consultation documents, as well as the circumstances surrounding publication of the White Paper, may be found on the Department of Health website.

Most of the White Paper is concerned with the government proposals for the regulation of medical practitioners, which it is not proposed to refer to here. Specific proposals concerning the future regulation of psychotherapists, counsellors, applied psychologists and others are interwoven with the proposals for medical practitioners at various points in the White Paper. The three professions referred to will be dealt with in the same way, though not at the same time - applied psychologists will be regulated before psychotherapists and counsellors. The main provisions affecting those professions may be summarised as follows:

1. Except for the pharmaceutical profession, there will be no new regulators
2. Psychotherapists, counsellors and applied psychologists will be regulated by The Health Professions Council ("HPC")
3. The council of HPC, along with all other regulators, will be subject to the following changes:

a) it will have fewer members
b) there will be at least parity of professional/lay composition, subject to future review
c) members will be independently appointed by Appointments Commission
d) there will be a duty to deal with the interests of all stakeholders
e) it will be accountable to Parliament
f) meetings will be open to the public
g) it will function more like an executive board and deal only with strategic matters, rather than with operational matters

4. HPC will draw members for its disciplinary tribunals from a central list of those persons who have been vetted and approved to sit on such tribunals
5. Disciplinary procedures will be subject to the concept of fitness to practise
6. The standard of proof in disciplinary proceedings will be that applicable in civil rather than criminal proceedings but on a sliding scale, so that, in the most serious cases (e.g. risk of loss of livelihood) the standard of proof will be virtually identical to the higher standard of proof in criminal proceedings
7. Revalidation of all practitioners at regular intervals by HPC
8. HPC will be responsible for educational standards
9. HPC must make proposals by Jan 2008 concerning the regulation of those in training
10. The government will seek, where possible, to promote common standards across all the professions in question, such as standards of professional conduct and of professional practice relating to areas of practice that require greater harmonisation. While recognising that there needs to be appropriate flexibility to reflect relevant differences between professions, the government believes that all professionals undertaking the same activity should be subject to the same standards of training and practice, so that those who use their services can be assured that there is no difference in quality.

A notable absence in the White Paper, compared with the Foster Review, is any proposal to delegate to existing voluntary regulatory or professional bodies any aspect of regulatory function on behalf of the regulator, save in special circumstances relating only to the NHS. It seems highly unlikely, in such circumstances, that there will ever be any scope for the continued operation, following the introduction of regulation by HPC, of the Independent Complaints Organisation currently being set up by UKCP.

Another consequence of the White Paper is that proposals formerly put forward for the talking therapies, along with applied psychology, to be regulated by a new and separate regulator, such as the proposed Psychological Professions Council, are most unlikely ever to come to fruition.

The government White Paper, while not casting in stone the proposed legislation that must be introduced, in order to effect these changes, makes it much less likely that future developments in this area will differ significantly from what is now proposed in the White Paper.

In the meantime, The Sector Skills Council for Health has launched its consultation of all interested parties, in order to develop an initial competence framework to identify the scope of practice involved in the area of psychotherapy and counselling. The College was invited to contribute its views in that consultation process, which has now closed. The submissions of The College in this regard may be accessed here: College Submission To Skills For Health

November 2006

In order to understand better recent developments in the field of regulation, the following outline of the principal groups of players may be helpful.

At the top are the regulatory bodies of the state, including the Health Professions Council (HPC), and the Department of Health (DoH), which is the branch of government that will promote regulation. Then come those bodies, some of which claim to be professional bodies but which are in fact principally, if not exclusively, concerned with voluntary regulation of practitioners but whose aim is ultimately compulsory regulation. This grouping of organisations is known as the Partnership Group, which currently comprises, amongst others, UKCP and BACP and includes the British Psychological Society (BPS). Finally comes a group of other bodies with an interest in regulation which are not necessarily regulatory bodies and some of which might more accurately be described as predominantly professional bodies. This is known as the Regulation Reference Group. This grouping of organisations arose out of the research and review of the nature of the professions of counselling and psychotherapy, known as the mapping process, carried out jointly by UKCP and BACP under the direction of DoH just over a year ago. The College is a member of this Regulation Reference Group.

The College has secured this position without giving up the right to seriously challenge and question the whole idea of regulation by the state.

The College has always argued the position that, if there is to be state-regulation of the profession, HPC, as it is currently constituted, would not be a suitable regulator. The reasons for this are set out in several documents published on this website. The College has also taken the position that, if regulation by the state does come about, this should be achieved by a body which is specifically oriented towards the psychological therapies, rather than HPC, which is oriented towards professions ancillary to medicine. It is now clear that UKCP and BACP have come to a similar conclusion.

In November 2005, representatives of The College attended the initial meeting of the then newly-formed Regulation Reference Group. The meeting was addressed by Rosalind Mead from DoH, advocating the way forward towards state-regulation and has been reported on in an earlier item in Latest News.

Following this, in December 2005, The College submitted a response to the call for ideas in connection with what has become known as the Foster Review, about regulation of the professions seen by the DoH as ancillary to medicine, including the professions concerned with the psychological therapies. This document is available via the DoH website.

Also in December 2005, The College wrote to the DoH identifying the precise location of The College on the professional scene and requesting an undertaking that we would be assured a place at future discussions concerning regulation. That assurance was forthcoming and access to the correspondence relating to this is also available from a link elsewhere in Latest News.

Consistent with this undertaking, The College, along with other organisations in the field, was notified in July by the DoH that a planning meeting of sector skills councils, qualifications authorities and others with expertise in competence development would be setting up a competence framework covering the practice of psychotherapists and counsellors and that the organisation Skills for Health, which is itself a part of The Sector Skills Council for Health, would coordinate the production of an initial framework to identify the scope of practice involved and that The College would be invited to participate.

The way forward via the determination and specification of competencies for our profession was regarded by many psychoanalytic practitioners, and possibly by most, as bad news for psychoanalysis. Again a critique setting out the arguments against this approach is on this website and is accessible from a link elsewhere in Latest News.

This month, The College has received a formal letter from Skills for Health, inviting The College to participate when the consultation process takes place between 1st December and the end of February 2007. UKCP in particular has already done a great deal of work in this area. Interestingly, however, Skills for Health went out of its way to give an assurance that the work and submissions of UKCP should not be taken as prejudging these issues and that the report already published by UKCP will constitute only one submission in the global consultation process.

Returning to the Foster Review, its findings were published in July 2006, almost simultaneously with the government's new proposals for regulation of the medical profession. As reported previously in Latest News, the two reports were presented very much as a joint bundle. The principal recommendation of the Foster Review was that there should be fewer regulators rather than a proliferation of specialised regulators and that the psychological therapies should be regulated via HPC, as if all practitioners were employed in the public services. It seems very clear from this that the government will not countenance a regulator oriented more specifically to the professions dealing with the psychological therapies. Nevertheless, DoH who published the Foster Review, called for submissions from all interested parties in a consultation process that would end on 10th November.

In order to contextualise the next development, it is helpful to note that, some time ago, BPS completed their own discussions with HPC, designed to lead to state-regulation by HPC of applied psychologists. The conclusion reached by BPS at the end of those discussions was that regulation by HPC would not be appropriate because, according to them, such regulation would not be sufficiently rigorous. Those who want to know more about this will find ample documentation and details on the BPS website.

Under existing legislation, the Secretary of State has to hold a public consultation of proposals for regulation by HPC and, until now, it has not been the practice of HPC to regulate professions that are opposed to regulation. Apparently that could be about to change in legislation currently before Parliament, enabling the government to regulate professions against their will. Furthermore, the government appears to have made it clear that, following these changes, it will regulate, via HPC, not only applied psychologists but also, probably, academic psychologists, who were never intended for regulation under the original discussions BPS had with HPC. It seems that there is an increasing determination by the government to regulate, almost immediately via HPC, psychologists of all descriptions and, ultimately within a few years, all practitioners of the psychological therapies, also via HPC.

At relatively short notice, a meeting of the Regulation Reference Group was convened on 10th October, which was attended by a representative of The College. What emerged was a joint presentation by UKCP, BACP and BPS, calling for the Regulation Reference Group to agree to make, by 10th November, a joint submission with the Partnership Group in the consultation process arising out of the Foster Review. The principal component of this submission comprised a fairly detailed outline for a new Psychological Professions Council (PPC) to regulate those professions allied to psychology, alongside those professions concerned with the psychological therapies. Although a version of this document was published on the BPS website, it subsequently emerged that the document is the result of a collaboration between BPS, UKCP and BACP. It was difficult at this meeting not to feel somewhat steam-rollered by these proposals, arising out of the immediate threat to psychologists at a time when no similar threat to practitioners of counselling and psychotherapy arises in the immediate future.

The College made every attempt to play a constructive role in these discussions and indicated that it might be possible to agree to a joint statement that was sufficiently widely worded and in a manner that would entail no definite commitment of any kind on the part of The College. In the end, the draft statement submitted by the Partnership Group for agreement by the Regulation Reference Group was too specific and insufficiently widely expressed to enable The College to agree to subscribe to it. As there was almost no time for further discussion, The College declined to subscribe but expressed its willingness to continue in constructive discussion about these issues.

In the end, The College made its own submission, under the consultation process arising from the Foster Review. A copy of that submission can be accessed by clicking this link.

The College was not the only body in the Regulation Reference Group to express reservations about these proposals. The AP-PP Section of UKCP in particular, also a membr of the Reference Group, had similar reservations. Furthermore, it is understood that BPC, also a member of the Reference Group (but not the Partnership Group) was not prepared to move away from the principle of regulation by HPC in favour of a body such as the proposed PPC.

Had The College been prepared to go along with what was being proposed by the Partnership Group, it would have been only on the basis of exploring the possibility of setting up a body such as the PPC but certainly not on the terms drafted by the Partnership Group. All aspects of the proposals must remain up for discussion, including the name itself of the proposed PPC.

Discussions within the Regulation Reference Group will continue and it is possible that this body will play an increasingly important role within the discussions for regulation of the psychological therapies by the state. The Partnership Group can now be in no doubt that there is, from some quarters, a degree of opposition to the principle of PPC, as well as wider opposition to the details of some of their proposals in the draft PPC document so far produced.

November 2006

Substantial changes were approved in the way in which The College operates.

The criteria and application procedures for membership that applied prior to the above changes were based on grandparenting provisions which came into effect when The College was founded three years ago. It has long been recognised that these procedures are not entirely satisfactory because, in effect, they limit membership of The College solely to those practitioners who are currently eligible for registration with UKCP (AP-PP Section) and BPC. This is because The College has, until now, had no formalised membership criteria and application procedures of its own. It is important that, as a professional organisation, The College should have in place its own membership criteria and application procedures. This has now been achieved with the introduction of the above changes.

The College remains committed to the principles on which it was founded: as a professional body for psychoanalytic practitioners from all schools of psychoanalysis in the UK, as well as being a learned society for the discipline of psychoanalysis. The College is not, therefore, a regulatory body. As a professional body, The College has no interest in the regulation of practitioners. A number of regulatory bodies already exists. However, such bodies are constitutionally unable to further the interests of practitioners and the various modalities of psychological therapy espoused by them. Some of them, while registering practitioners, do not even, currently, permit membership by individual practitioners.

The College differs radically from such a regulatory model. It is a genuine professional body whose principal objective is to look after the interests of its members and to further the discipline of psychoanalysis in all its diverse forms. In this respect, The College is unique and, arguably, the only pluralistic professional (as opposed to regulatory or training) body for psychoanalysis in the UK.

Despite the above objectives, The College accepts that it would be unethical, as a professional body, to ignore the interests of members of the public in relation to its practitioner-members. This principle has so far been recognised in a vicarious manner, through the grandparenting provisions that have required all members to retain their membership of other organisations belonging to UKCP or BPC: so that they might be subject to the codes of ethics and complaints procedures of those organisations.

The College has brought into force a Code of Professional Conduct, as well as complaints procedures, which now apply to all its members and are set out in the provisions referred to below .

The new CPC may be viewed here: Code Of Professional Conduct .

The College continues to be committed to a pluralistic, inclusive and diverse understanding of psychoanalysis and seeks to recognise that diversity and the many developments that have taken place since Freud's introduction of psychoanalysis at the end of the nineteenth century. The College broadly adheres to the criteria for recognition of this diversity which have, since its foundation, been published in the flag-statements set out on the College website. A more up-to-date statement of some of these criteria is now set out in a new flag-statement WHO IS ELIGIBLE TO APPLY which may be accessed from the main menu of this website.

The result of all of these changes is that members of The College are no longer obliged to retain their membership of an organisation which is a member of UKCP or of BPC. Practitioners who, for whatever reason, are not eligible for registration with either UKCP or BPC may now apply for membership of The College, provided they meet the criteria for membership. Those who are eligible but choose not to register with UKCP or BPC may also continue, as before, to apply for membership.

All applications for membership of The College will now be assessed by the Membership Committee. All assessments and recommendations will then be submitted to the Board of Governors whose decision in the matter will be final. The procedures of and criteria for deliberation by the Membership Committee for dealing with all applications for membership may be viewed here: Membership Application Procedures .

August 2006

The Foster Review on The regulation of the non-medical healthcare professions was published in July. Published at the same time was the Donaldson Report on Good doctors, safer patients which sets out government proposals for the future regulation of the medical profession in the aftermath of Shipman. The latter report received a lot of coverage in the national press.

A public consultation on these proposals has been set up by the Department of Health, to be completed by 10th November.

The following appear to be the principal conclusions of the Foster Review:

• The main concerns are revalidation (linked to CPD) and fitness to practise.
  
• There is also concern about the multiplicity of adjudicators for dealing with complaints about fitness to practise and the report appears to advocate a single adjudicatory system to which all regulators would have to submit.
  
• It is now clear beyond doubt that, far from increasing the number of regulators, the government wants to reduce them and that there is now little hope of psychoanalysis or psychotherapy coming under any regulator other than HPC.
  
• There are proposals for delegating and locating regulatory functions beyond the regulator and, in particular, the proposals regarding revalidation. This would appear to open the door for the survival of the current voluntary regulatory bodies, such as UKCP and BACP, with specific regulatory functions delegated to them on behalf of the regulator, regardless of whether or not a practitioner is registered with or a member of one of these bodies.
  
• A further interesting development is a stated intention to bring into state-regulation those professions, e.g. osteopaths, that have in recent years gained statutory regulation along the lines the profession of psychotherapy had always hoped for. So, even if that profession had already secured statutory regulation via the Alderdice Psychotherapy Bill, the profession would still be brought into ultimate regulation by the state under HPC, if present proposals are anything to go by.
  
• There is a proposal for nominated appointments to the various regulatory councils concerned, rather than elections thereto by practitioners. This is apparently to avoid the "cosy" arrangement of presidents of organisations being routinely elected.
  
• Most worrying of all, the burden of proof in decisions on fitness to practise will be the lesser civil one of "proof on the balance of probabilities" rather than the currently usual higher criminal standard of "proof beyond reasonable doubt". This means that it will, under these proposals, be considerably easier for a complaint to be established against a practitioner. This is a very disturbing development when one considers that it is the ability of practitioners to earn their living that may be at stake.

An entirely unrelated development has been the government requirement that all practitioners in a regulated profession must submit to training standards established by means of evidence-based competencies. This is a development that should be of serious concern to all practitioners of psychoanalysis. Representatives of the Analytical Psychology - Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Section of UKCP and of BPC are meeting to discuss how psychoanalytic therapy might be defined in terms of such competencies.

A statement by The College in relation to psychoanalysis and the issue of competencies may be accessed here: Competences.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that, if state-regulation via HPC comes about, far from ending up with a multiplicity of professional titles for psychoanalytic practitioners, it may be difficult enough to secure even the single separate professional title of psychoanalytic psychotherapist. This will only be achieved if it can be demonstrated that there is some significant difference, in terms of competencies, between psychoanalytic psychotherapy and other forms of psychotherapy. There is now a strong possibility that the only professional titles for the psychological therapies that will be regulated by HPC would be psychotherapist and counsellor. Psychotherapist would then cover all varieties of psychotherapy, including psychoanalysis in all its different forms. If this were to come about, it would not necessarily mean that psychoanalytic practitioners would be prevented from using a professional title other than psychotherapist. However, it probably would mean that, regardless of which alternative professional title they use, they must be registered with HPC as psychotherapists.

January 2005

The College of Psychoanalysts - UK is pleased to announce the foundation, on 5th. January 2005, of a new separate but affiliated institution: the COLLEGE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS which has been established in order to carry out new academic and research activities that are to remain separate from the professional activities of The College of Psychoanalysts.

In order to avoid any possible confusion between these two organisations, both of which contain the word college in their name, The College of Psychoanalysts - UK will continue, as before, to be referred to, in its abbreviated form, as The College. The new institution will be referred to, in abbreviated form, by the acronym CPA.

The College will continue to maintain its principal function as a learned professional society for practitioners of psychoanalysis in the United Kingdom and will continue to publish its Register of Practitioners.

CPA aims to offer a range of courses of seminars related to psychoanalysis. Some are likely to be academic in nature while others will relate to continuous professional development. These courses will be open to practitioners of psychoanalysis and, in most cases, whether such practitioners are also members of The College or not. It is hoped that other seminars may be open to those who are not psychoanalytic practitioners. Details will be announced in due course.

A further important area of activity of CPA is intended to be the pursuit of research related to psychoanalysis in general, as well as the nature and comparison of different forms of psychoanalytic theory, training and clinical treatment in particular.

Further information about CPA will be published as soon as possible.

November 2004

In November 2004, The European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP) admitted The College to full organisational membership.
EAP is the body which represents all modalities of psychotherapy at the European Commission. Membership of this organisation will enable The College to send delegates to the AGM of EAP and to take part in the on-going committee work there. Some of the work, like the current setting up of a European Wide Organisation (EWO) for the psychoanalytic modality, is of particular interest to The College.
Membership of EAP is an important development for The College, in the light of the decision taken by the EU on 11th. February 2004 to issue a European directive for psychotherapy (see article by Haya Oakley in Papers for Publication And Discussion on this website).
EAP is a complex organisation and The College is fortunate to count among its members some who are familiar with its structure and procedures. This should enable The College to become an active member.
The College now looks forward to extending our discourse to European colleagues. Members of The College will be kept informed of future developments in Europe which might affect them or the discipline of psychoanalysis.

October 2004

Following publication of the disclaimer concerning BPAS on this website in August 2004, BPAS made some cosmetic changes to the unacceptable references to The College, which then appeared on their website. These went some way towards dealing with some of the points raised against them. There remained, nevertheless, a number of serious statements which amounted to malicious falsehoods or were defamatory, by innuendo, of all individual practitioners who are members of The College. The College understands that a number of practitioners, who are members of The College, then wrote to BPAS, taking up these matters on a formal legal basis. Although, so far as The College is aware, none of these practitioners has so far received from BPAS any meaningful response to their letters, The College is nevertheless very pleased to record that BPAS have now removed from their website, in their entirety, all references to The College and its members.

An article by Audrey Gillan was published in The Guardian on 9th. June 2004:

Battle of the couches

The article deals with the controversy surrounding the foundation of The College and presents comments of practitioners from both sides of the argument. The following is a commentary on some of the arguments raised.

The first point made against The College is the similarity of the new website address for The College to that of the long-established website address of BPAS. The latter address is based on the word "psychoanalysis" while The College address is based on the word "psychoanalyst". There are many website addresses throughout the world which include the word "psychoanalysis". So far as The College is aware, no website address for any organisation anywhere in the world includes the word "psychoanalyst". The College website address is therefore entirely distinctive and possibly unique. It is certainly not in the interests of The College for it to be confused in any way with BPAS or any other organisation. In this connection, the President of BPAS now appears to concede that his society "probably overreacted" in relation to their published disclaimer about The College.

Later in the article, Professor Peter Fonagy of BPAS while, refreshingly, claiming not to have strong feelings that psychoanalysts should belong to any one institution, nevertheless calls for the government to intercede and introduce some clarity. This is an extraordinary suggestion coming from someone in an organisation which has, until now, sought exemption of their members from any form of state regulation, whether as part of the current dialogue about the regulation of psychotherapy generally or the regulation of psychoanalysis in particular. The argument is that there exists the potential for great damage to vulnerable people at the hands of those not properly qualified to practise psychoanalysis. The College entirely supports that view. However, within the present context, this argument is disingenuous because government regulation of who is entitled to use the label "psychoanalyst" will not overcome this problem. It is not the use of one label or another (whether it be psychoanalyst or psychoanalytic psychotherapist) which has the potential to cause damage to vulnerable members of society but rather the manner in which clinical treatment is conducted. No amount of regulation will ever be able to prevent any psychotherapist (or counsellor, for that matter) from practising psychoanalysis in the consulting room; no matter what label they may use. If such a regulation existed, it would be impossible to enforce, even if there existed powers for serious and damaging intrusion into that which takes place in the consulting room.

As usual, great play is made in the article on a postulated distinction between two forms of psychoanalytic treatment: psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The argument is that each form of treatment is carried out by a different type of practitioner and that this justifies the separate labels psychoanalyst and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. There may well be a difference between the two forms of treatment but nobody has, so far, been able to articulate convincingly what that difference might be, other than purely in terms of some formal criteria. The fact is that both forms of treatment require a training in psychoanalysis and that both forms of treatment are carried out by all psychoanalytic practitioners, whichever label they may use. One of the aims of The College is to promote discussion amongst practitioners from all schools of psychoanalysis about whether there is in fact such a difference and how this might be defined. Nevertheless, so far as the underlying theory is concerned, there is only the theory of psychoanalysis itself, in all its diverse forms. There is no such thing as a separate theory of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Most significantly of all, those who claim an exclusive monopoly on the right to call themselves psychoanalysts and to practise psychoanalysis have never been prepared to articulate what constitutes a psychoanalytic training, which is distinguishable from any other form of training, other than in terms of the so-called "technical rules".

What the article does not make clear is the fact that all members of The College have undergone a training in psychoanalysis which is, in all material respects, of the same standard and quality as that offered by any established training in psychoanalysis anywhere in the world.

The article concludes with the statement that the controversy has resulted, so far, in a missed opportunity for reconciliation among psychoanalytic practitioners.

On 29th. May 2004 an article by D.D. Guttenplan was published in The New York Times under the heading:

Calling All Ids: Freudians at War

The article poses the important question who owns psychoanalysis? and, in this connection, goes on to relate the formation of The College in the UK and its opposition by BPAS. Indeed, in bringing the attention of American readers to what is going on in the UK, these are the only two British professional organisations referred to and named. Interesting and helpful contributions to the argument by College members Susie Orbach, Joseph Schwartz and James Barrett are referred to in the article. A significant statement is the suggestion by the writer of the article that the arguments and outcome of this "dispute" are likely to reverberate on both sides of the Atlantic. The article ends with the sobering commentary that the arguments initiated by The College have a sense of urgency because, in the view of the writer, psychoanalysis in the UK is likely to be regulated within the next few years. The writer goes on to suggest that lists and standards will be drawn up in the UK and that battle lines are forming here about who will set those standards and who will keep those lists.

The article was also reproduced in the International Herald Tribune on 2nd. June 2004 under the heading:

A clash of egos among British analysts

In a world which is dominated by the USA in so many areas, it is gratifying that the centre of gravity for the world of psychoanalysis remains firmly rooted in Europe and in the UK in particular. The writer of the above article amusingly acknowledges that there may be a higher concentration of therapeutic couches per square mile in Northwest London than on the Upper West Side of Manhattan!

Although the formation of The College has started new and important ripples in our professional pond, it is interesting that the first public recognition of those ripples has come from the other side of the Atlantic, where there seems to be an open acknowledgment of the profound effect the debate commenced in the UK will have in the USA. This is surely a recognition of just how powerful those ripples are. Let us hope that this will now lead to open and public debate in the UK and particularly in the discussions which are now being invited on this website in the Professional Forum. Here, there is a valuable facility for practitioners of all persuasions within the psychoanalytic spectrum to have their say. This is what The College is all about. Our primary purpose is not involvement in professional politics but rather the advancement, through open and public discussion, of the discipline of psychoanalysis: in an atmosphere of mutual respect, open to all bona fide contributors and not just those who belong to some cosy club.

Although the developments referred to above are of great interest, far more serious developments are taking place across the English Channel in France and, as a result, possibly in Brussels. These developments are likely to have a profound effect on the UK and the ability of psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and counsellors of all types to practise their profession. Look out for an important letter from Haya Oakley to be published in the next issue of the British Journal of Psychotherapy which deals with this. An article by Haya Oakley dealing with the issue in question, but in greater depth, will also be published shortly in Professional Forum on this website.

Two letters to the Editor were recently published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy. One was from the President of The College, drawing readers' attention to the aims and objectives of The College. The other was from Carola Thorpe, a practitioner who is opposed to The College and who, in her letter, attacked the basis on which it has been formed. Both letters were introduced by the Editor who invited practitioners to air the discussion about The College in a way that allows individual practitioners "to come to a considered, well-informed view about whether The College is divisive, or is making a sincere attempt to achieve pluralism in a divided profession" BJP 20:3, pp 409-416

October 2003

The founding of The College drew criticism from certain organisations and support from others. The following are examples of comments in support of The College made, in their personal capacity, by practitioners from different areas of the profession:

From a UKCP registrant and member of the UKCP Governing Board:
"The College is a profoudly useful and facilitative entity in the field"

From a prominent UKCP/BCP registrant: a psychoanlyst and senior member of BPAS:
"Congratulations on your initiative, you have certainly set off a storm, letters flying in all directions"

From a senior UKCP registrant:
"I wish you well in what seems to me to be an attempt to overcome the rifts developing between existing groups of professional organisations"

From a BCP registrant: a professor of psychoanalysis who is also a senior training analyst and member of BPAS:
"This seems a very brave enterprise, but anything to get factions who don't communicate with each other to be more tolerant, seems a good idea"

These comments reflect what The College aspires to facilitate and promote.